Almost 136 million shoppers expected for US Black Friday sales

Shoppers spent more than Dollars 1.7 billion on online purchases on Thursday, which showed an increase of 25 percent from the same period of time past year, beating market prediction of an 18 percent increase, Xinhua cited an Adobe Digital Index (ADI) report as saying on Friday. Introduced into Britain in 2010 by US online retailer Amazon, its popularity forced store groups to join the fray and this year, according to a survey by Barclays, 77 percent of them are participating.

Walmart expects 75 percent of its web traffic to come from mobile devices this year.

Sales at retail stores on Black Friday fell to $10.4 billion this year, down from $11.6 billion in 2014, according to preliminary figures from research firm ShopperTrak.

Marrocuin initially planned to start his shopping during the night, but Best Buy stores had closed at 1 a.m. and reopened at 8 a.m. on Black Friday.

They’ve started offering mega-discounts in stores and online earlier instead of waiting until Black Friday. She said she tries to hike every year after Thanksgiving and likes to avoid the shopping crowds. Take Bintou Cham, who got discounts of 40 to 50 percent at J.C. Penney and other stores in New York City, but was hoping for more.

Shoppers are even starting to postpone some of their back-to-school purchases until later in the fall, in anticipation of such deals, Christopher said.

Shoppers have options to hit stores before and after Thanksgiving dinner, overnight into Black Friday morning and throughout the weekend, so the flow of customers into stores is becoming more spread out and less frenetic.

Bay Area shoppers appear more likely to procrastinate about holiday shopping this year compared to their national counterparts.

Retailers “have taken the sense of urgency out for consumers by spreading their promotions throughout the year and what we are seeing is a result of that”, said Jeff Simpson, director of the retail practice at Deloitte. She recently bought a new vehicle, refrigerator, dishwasher and two vacuums through early-bird holiday deals at stores.

“Now, I’m looking for the deals online and going out to stores to get them”, said Gentry, who was joined his father and mother.

This is only the beginning for the shopping season. We are just having fun.

The Braehead shopping centre in Glasgow saw a minimal increase in footfall, with only Currys PC World welcoming customers early for the festive rush. “It’s more of an experience because while you’re there on Cyber Monday you’re literally sitting at a computer”, said George Karidis of Holland, Pa. “It’s better to go around, and see what fits you”. It also expected about 135.8 million people to be shopping during the four-day weekend, compared with 133.7 million past year.